Thursday, May 20, 2021

Death of a Jacuzzi Tub, part deux

Remember that little problem we had with the floor tile in our new shower?  Wellllllllll........turns out the tile wasn't dirty after all.  I scrubbed and scrubbed, tried all the remedies people told me to try, and even had the tile professionally cleaned.  The white film remained.  So I looked for the tile on the Floor and Decor website and found it.  Guess what it said on the listing?  NOT FOR USE ON FLOORS!!!!  It's meant for backsplashes only.  UGH!!!

This is the old tile.  And shortly after we had this experience, F&D added a sign below the sample saying "Not For Floors". 🤪 

So Tony and I gathered all our F&D paperwork plus the one sheet of tile we kept in case we ever had to replace a broken tile, and we schlepped it back up to F&D -- about a 30-minute drive.  We spoke to the in-house designer, who was very gracious and apologetic.  She explained that our original salesperson was new and shouldn't have been on the floor yet.  Whatever.  Anyway, she and the store manager helped us pick out a new rock flooring and gave us a very generous discount.  As they should.



A sample of the new rock tile on top of the old tile.

The new rock tile, up close.

Soon Nelson, our wonderful tile guy, was back in our shower with his "no Ingles" sidekick, Josue ("Joe-zway"), chipping away at the old tile to remove it.  In a week the new floor was installed, grouted, and sealed.  We are much happier, and we actually like the new floor better than the bronze subway tiles.  Win-win!!


All finished, and just beautiful!


Who knew it would go so much better with the wall tile than our first choice?  Even cute little Nelson from the Dominican Republic said we should have picked this one in the first place. 


BONUS: It feels like a foot massage when you stand on it!!



Friday, March 26, 2021

Death of a Jacuzzi tub

 


Ever since Tony and I moved to Water's Edge in April 2016, we have wanted to partially remodel our master bathroom. The sink area and water closet are great, but our shower was too small and we never used the built-in Jacuzzi tub that took up nearly half the bathroom. This year we decided to finally tackle the project. The wonderful contractor we've used in the past, Brian Airis with North Texas Handyman Services, was the logical choice since he's the best in the business.


On one side of the bathroom is the dual sink counter and water closet. On the other side was the tub, shower stall, and linen closet.



We decided to use the space previously occupied by the tub to create a new shower. The existing shower and linen closet would become a large walk-in linen closet. Exciting, right?  So demo started Monday, January 13th promptly at 8 am.





By Wednesday evening a lot had been done. Concrete was poured for the shower floor around the drain, and the new closet was framed in and partially dry walled.



Thursday the drywall was mudded and looking like an actual closet!  The next series of photos will be self explanatory, just more of the construction sequence.









Incidentally, I chose the shower wall tile and Tony chose the floor tile, which I absolutely love.  But our hard water is wreaking havoc on the tile and grout, leaving an ugly white film every time we turn on the water.  If anyone has any ideas how to clean it, I'm open to any and all suggestions.  I've tried several products and have even scrubbed it on my hands and knees with a brush, to no avail.  It's so pretty and I'm so bummed that the beautiful bronze color is covered in a coating of white.  Somehow there has to be a solution.






TA-DA!!  All finished, and boy, do we love our new walk-in storage closet and huge shower (affectionately known as "The Ballroom")!!!  It was a lengthy project but so well worth it.  Now we're contemplating what to do next! 😵